How to Land a UX Design internship at a Top Tech Company
In this post, I reveal patterns and findings from mentoring and helping students get design internships at tech companies
“Don’t work on projects for the sake of shelving them on your portfolio. They will accumulate dust and will get rusty due to lack of care. Instead, let your projects be an extension of yourself. Let them represent what you stand for as an individual as this point of time.”
— Mackenzie Derival
Back in January 2017, I was in my room alone watching design YouTube videos and working on design side-projects. I never thought that 3 years later, I would be hosting design workshops at UWaterloo and get cold-emailed by students trying to replicate what I accomplished. That’s why I dedicated my last year of University to helping students bring their design careers to the next level.
As a result, I mentored and helped roughly 20 students land internships at big tech companies and startups. By helping people from various backgrounds land internships, I was able to notice various patterns across people and companies. In this article, I will reveal some of my findings.
Okay cool… So what’s the secret? 🤫
I divided this post article into 3 parts. My answers are solely based on my experience helping students land internships. I highly advise you to adapt these tips to your own context. Everyone has their own unique path, so you shouldn’t take everything at face value.
1. What are the attributes differentiating FAANG interns from others?
2. How can you stand out?
3. What advice do I typically give students?
Disclaimer: I use FAANG as a catch-all term for any top internships.
1. Which factors differentiate FAANG design interns from others? 👩🏽💻🧑🏾💻
“I didn’t get an offer, unfortunately. Gotta bounce back on that recruiting grind!” (Oct 2019)
“I got an offer from Amazon!” (Feb 2020)
— Product Design Intern at Amazon
Experience Level
Case studies and side-projects are great ways to get started, but nothing beats real industry experience. In the past, I successfully helped students land their first design job as well as get jobs at FAANG. The way I mentor people usually varies depending on the experience level because the needs tend to vary.
Students who previously landed design internships tend to have had a design mentor who gave them basic UX education. Since they typically understand best practices, my role as a mentor is to provide them with the framework to think about their design approach more rigorously. I would ask them tough questions about their work to help them think deeper about their approach.
Students without any UX experience tend to have a brief understanding of design that they developed by crafting 2–3 conceptual case studies. For these people, my role is to use their projects as an anchor point to teach them best practices and help them think about design in a structured way. They tend to land internships at startups or companies that prioritize hiring beginners.
Biased Towards Experience
It’s common for students to value gaining experiences more than they value school and grades. You can be involved on campus and do design-related extracurriculars. I have also seen mentees going as far as risking their visa status by taking multiple semesters off for the sake of gaining experience. Oftentimes, that is the type of sacrifice it takes to stand out from this highly competitive design market.
In my early design days, I often skipped lectures and assignments to allocate more time for designing. I would work on projects, get feedback, and iterate at a fast pace. I was able to improve faster and work on bigger projects as time went along because I did not take school seriously. That eventually led me in starting a startup and landing a UX internship at Google. Compared to my mentees, my actions were pretty extreme, but I have seen similar behaviors with students I helped.
Abstract Thinking
Due to the subjectivity of design, it is often hard to communicate ideas and concepts because they are really abstract. When I help students, I often need to go meta in order to explain concepts and frameworks. Having the ability to think in systems, adopt a growth mindset, and ask good questions allows these mentees to grasp concepts quickly. From experience, students who land FAANG as first-ever design internships are all really good at abstract thinking.
2. So now, do I stand out ✌🏾?
“Hi Mackenzie, my name is Celine and I am an aspiring product designer currently completing my second year at Columbia University”
— Product Design Intern at Apple
From my experience, students usually stand out in five different ways. The people I helped that were successful in landing FAANG had at least 2 out of these 5 attributes in addition to having good design skills.
1. Your School (As unfair as it is)→ That’s the lowest impact of the five, but it still matters. It is so much easier to mentor someone from UWaterloo than McGill because the coop at UWaterloo gives students an edge due to the established recruiting pipeline and network. On multiple occasions, I had to leverage my UWaterloo network to intro mentees from lower target schools.
2. Illustration Skills → Illustration is definitely a good value-add. It shows attention to the craft and your ability to visually execute. In a portfolio, you can easily hide a lack of product thinking skills behind good-looking visuals. For illustration, you can get started with YouTube tutorials.
3. Motion Skills → Motion is also a great value-add too. It shows attention to detail and your ability to create high-fidelity prototypes. It also helps in making your work look more polished. For motion, you can get started by doing micro-interaction using Principle.
4. Impactful Design Project → In my opinion, that’s the most impactful of the five. Doing an impactful project which includes starting a startup, becoming a top Medium blogger, or launch a community empowerment project is the best way to learn, validate your skills, and build credibility in the community.
5. Unicorn → Unicorns are designers who have strong programming skills, strong visual skills, and strong product thinking skills. These are rare, I only know one. If you are a Unicorn, you will definitely get bored of FAANG. People usually become unicorns later in their careers.
3. What advice do I typically give students 🤓?
“Hi Mackenzie, my name is Karim and I want to become an awesome sauce designer!”
— Product Design Intern at Glassdoor
Aspiring/Beginning Designer (Portfolio & Less than 1 Internship)
Find a way to get your first job. You can cold-email recruiters and potential hiring managers. Going to meetups, events, and conferences are also a good way to meet designers and recruiters
When looking for a job, finding a position, or get experience where you will ship a product (or a service) that people are going to use. Conceptual projects are a good way to start and get practice. When doing a conceptual project, treat it as if it was a startup that you were going to launch.
A way most students get their first UX is by showing good visual skills. I personally focused on UX Research and product thinking early on. What matters is to become strong at a skill and to leverage it to get a UX job or a job closely related that will ultimately allow you to transition.
Recommended Course: Develop a Strong Design Process
Intermediate Designer (Portfolio, 2 Internship)
At this stage, most students want to land a FAANG job. If that’s your case, keep in mind that it’s going to be the best and worst year of your life. The biggest challenge is to juggle job-hunting, school work, learning design notions you don’t know, working on new projects, polishing old projects, and manage your life.
I recommend starting your job hunt in August. By mid-August, you should have a polished and updated resume and portfolio, cold-email templates, and a list of the “dream” companies you want to work at. In September, you should be ready to start applying and cold-emailing.
You are going to get rejected A LOT. You will feel mentally crushed and depressed. Your weaknesses are going to stand out more than your strength. You will even rethink your career decision to pursue design. It’s part of the game. DON’T GIVE UP! I used to watch motivational videos on YouTube just to get back on my feet.
Here’s a typical I often say:
“Your current interview is a practice for the next one. The next interview is going to be a practice for the following one, and so forth.”
“You should not expect to receive feedback from your interviews. You should be mature enough to be self-critique on your performance and iterate based on that.”
Mentee: “I will never be able to do [hard design/job-hunt related task]”
Me: “Definitely not with that mindset. Now go back to work.”
Advanced Designer (FAANG internship)
Keep up the hustle. Things are only going to get harder from there. Follow your curiosity, find your purpose, don’t follow dogma, and strive to be happy!
GOOD LUCK WITH JOB HUNTING EVERYONE 🍀🍀🍀! I REALLY HOPE THIS HELPS.
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